good afternoon, everyone. i'm don lemon and you're watching live special coverage from newtown, connecticut, the scene of the horrific elementary school rampage. >> and i'm deborah feyerick here live in atlanta. >> i want to tell you, viewers, this is hard and over the next two hours know that we are doing something that's really hard and unprecedented, not dealing with what the families are dealing with, obviously, who have suffered such tragedy but to have to come and report on 20

children dead is almost unfate th unfathomable. the church is keeping their doors open and are not allowing the media to come in here. this search is open for 24 hours. they have lost members of their own church. again, this is hard. i can speak for myself and deb feyerick, we will try to speak as calm and comforting as we can and sometimes we won't get things right. we're learning a lot of information just as you are learning it here. we're going to be try to be as respectful as possible. we did not speak with children on camera without the parents'

permission. as we say that, bear with us here and we're going to try to go through this without breaking down. this is really tough for everyone involved and for everyone watching. so we're learning new details about how this rampage unfolded and that man, who is accused of carrying it out. he is 20-year-old adam lanza and we will try to say his name as little as possible but we have to say it for the record. lanza tried to buy a gun three days before the shooting but did not have the proper paperwork. and police revealed just today that three guns, not two, as previously thought were found near lanza's body inside that school. investigators are working around the clock and will probably be there for another day or two until they get all of the information they need. the victims' bodies have been removed from the school and taken to the medical examiner's office. not just victims but people who lived extraordinary lives. their names are expected to be released soon. and when we get them we will

reveal them to you as respectful as possible. we're left with more questions than answers about the possible motive of this 20-year-old shooter. police say he killed his mother. his mother's name is nancy. he did that at her home in newtown before the rampage at school and then took his own live. mary snow is live. this is tough. what have we learned about this suspect? are we learning anything about a motive at this hour? >> reporter: well, don, officials aren't saying publicly what they are saying about a motive but they are picking up information about how and why this horric shooting happened and they have been recovering evidence and we just saw a truck belonging to the connecticut state police just leaving the lanza home that is behind me. you can't see it.

it's behind me at the back. several law enforcement vehicles left just moments ago and law enforcement has been on this scene since shortly after yesterday's horrific shooting. earlier this morning lieutenant paul vance was asked whether writings or e-mails were recovered to tell investigators about a potential motive. here's how he answered that question. >> our investigators at the crime scene, the school and secondarily at the secondary crime scene that we discussed where the female was located deceased, did produce some very good evidence in this investigation that our investigators will be able to use in hopefully painting the complete picture about how and why this occurred. >> reporter: don, you were just reporting on the weapons that

were found yesterday near the shooter's body. cnn -- those two weapons, two handguns and one semiautomatic rifle and cnn has been reporting that the weapons had been purchased by the suspect's mother, nancy lanza. nancy lanza, don't know much about her. we did talk to a neighbor earlier today who said, be you know, there was nothing out of the ordinary about this woman, that she was a nice woman. she was known around the neighborhood. but said that the family wasn't all that social but there was really nothing out of the ordinary and came as a surprise to learn about those weapons, obviously. don? >> so mary, as we are learning, one was a glock, one was a sig sauer and one was a bushmaster and we understand he tried to purchase other guns but there was an issue with the paperwork?

>> reporter: cnn's susan candiotti had been reporting about the fact that he had access to other weapons and that there had been, i believe, three other weapons were recovered elsewhere. >> and you look at those guns on the screen. mary, thank you very much. you wonder how a 20-year-old who may have had issues would gain access to those guns and every time we have a shooting i just came back from colorado it seems like weeks ago reporting on that theater shooting. when is the time, mary? when is the time? that's what everyone around the country is wondering. thank you, mary snow. deb feyerick is back in atlanta where we're learning more about the victims.

deb? >> one thing to continue on your train of thought, the three guns that were found, three of them were purchased legally by the mother, nancy lanza. the question is, why did she have these particular type of guns which are defensive. these are not hunting rifles. these are guns that you keep for protection. clearly that is something that they are going to be looking into. we are learning about the names of the victims of this horrific attack. 20 children. they were between the ages of 5 and 10 years old, from kindergarten up to 3rd and 4th great. six adults killed, among the school's principal and school psychologist. nick valencia is joining me as he is learning more about who the victims are. >> that's right. we're waiting for a confirmation from state police. 26 people in all killed at the sandy hook elementary school yesterday. we have been able to independently confirm two of those names, deb.

one is dawn hochsprung, the beloved principal. just 47 years old. she had been the principal since 2010. described by people who knew her as affable but serious leader. a tough lady but in the right sort of sense. she had arrived with 12 years of administrative spern. she has a beautiful smile. she oversaw the school security project which required everybody that visited the school after 9:30 a.m., they were required to buzz in at that front entrance. we understand that details have emerged that the gunman stormed in, forced his way in to sandy hook elementary school. she was -- getting ba being ack the victim, dawn hochsprung, she leaves behind a husband and two daughters and three

stepdaughters. mary sherlach, the school psychologist, she spent a lot of time in three school systems before arriving at sandy hook element vee school. on friday, a parent told cnn that sherlach and hochsprung were in an administrative meeting at which point they heard a large pop, pop, pop which we now understand was the gunfire coming from the suspected gunman at which point they left into the hallway and they were confronted by the gunman. they left to investigate but both never came back. the psychologist, mary sherlach, had a master's degree from southern state connecticut. she worked with disabled adults. a quintessential in that fabric of the community there. a sad, sad situation. the 26 victims, two names we've been able to confirm so far. we'll undoubtedly hear more about the victims. >> absolutely.

and kate bolduan reported that a teacher was able to protect her children and they ran out past the gunman. it's not clear whether in fact she survived this attack. her sister posted something on her twitter account saying my sister died protecting her students. god, why did you take her? and don i think that is the question that so many are requesting now when you look at the faces and we're going to see so many other faces. but when you look at this and you think of the vulnerability and how one moment you are happy and your life is in tact and then all of a sudden it's almost as if you take a turn and you go down another path and i think that is a question that everyone is going to ask and that is, god, why did you take them? don? >> we keep calling them victims. these are people who lived extraordinary lives and if you've heard their story, you've heard how they handle all of

this extraordinary people who did the best that they could under these circumstances and i'm sure circumstances in their lives and i would not like to troefr them as victims. just people who lived extraordinary lives and taken away too soon. thank you, deb. new information just in to cnn, the governor dannel malloy, the governor of connecticut, will address the people of connecticut at 5:00 p.m. eastern. he will speak to the people of connecticut live from his office. it goes on to say how we're going to get the information. expect that and we'll carry it live for you here in cnn. in the meantime, investigators say that the school shooter had some sort of altercation at the school earlier in the week and police now say two pistols and an assault rifle were found inside the school near his body. no one, especially little kids, especially little kids -- think

about the age of these children. no one stands a chance against such fire power. i want to bring in cnn contributor and former cia director tom fuentes. before we get to that conversation, let's talk about the conversation that people are having in the country when it comes to gun laws and the second amendment right. no one is trying to take away the second amount right. as a tax dee driver drove me to my hotel at 5:00 in the morning, the taxi driver said, what is congress doing about gun laws? it's time to act now and stop saying it's not responsible to talk about it after a shooting. this is the time to talk about it. >> don, i completely agree with you. we hear we can't talk about this now, we have to be in mourning and pray for the families and then a couple days go by, the emotion goes by and nobody cares to talk about it. so you're right. when is the time?

there's no good time. no better time than the present, i think, to have at least have the discussion of what is reasonable for the number of firearms that are at large in society and not to mention that we still have the issue of the very inadequate mental health system in this country. so if you're a parent and have a child that is growing up with problems and you can see that they have some type of a brain disorder or mental issue, there's not much that you can do about it. there's not much help that society gives a family or law enforcement or doctors to deal with mentally disturbed individuals and then combine that with the number of weapons at large and we have disaster after disaster. we're all upset, shocked and outraged. a couple days go by and nothing changes. >> well, listen, i think you're right about that when it comes to the mental health issue. here's the thing. if someone has a mental health problem, three other people, ten

other people can take them down. if someone with a knife does the same thing, that does not happen with a gun. you have the power with an automatic weapon to take away many, many lives in a split second and that needs to be addressed, even if you are mentally healthy or mentally unhealthy. guns do offer you that power. >> well, that's true. but in this case, even more power because -- >> and if you didn't have access to those guns, mentally stable or mentally unstable, then people would not be able to take so many lives at once. >> well, that's true. and in a case like this, though, where the shooter stops and reloads, undoubtedly to fire as many bullets as he did, he would have had to reload several times. who is going to attack him or jump on him? you're not going to have a 5-year-old say, let's roll and take the gun away from the shooter. it's not going to happen. they are going to sit there or stand there or run there and be killed and that's what we have in this case.

>> okay. so listen, now we're learning that the gunman may have had access to three additional rifles. he tried to buy a gun as early as tuesday. what do you make of that. >> well, that's interesting. what was going on in his brain that he didn't think the three weapons that he showed up with were enough? a block, a sig sauer pistol, be tremendous firepower and then combining that with an assault rifle where he can buy a 30-round or greater magazine to feed through that gun? that wasn't enough? what did he have in mind? take out the whole school? we don't know. >> why are investigators so intent on reciting the crime from the beginning to the end? is it likely that they will discover something new? >> it's possible and then also in doing his background check they may find that there may be some other individual out there that triggered this and we don't know, not necessarily a co-conspirator but somebody out there that may have knowledge about it and they are going to want to know if he had paperwork on his body when they found him in the school, maybe he wrote

some kind of man gueifesto, gooe letter. no clue what was on his mind. but the authorities want to talk to everybody that's had a conversation with him or dealt with him going back as far as they can, days, months, years even to see if there was something that showed up in the past that would be an indication of what triggered this, why he wanted to do it, for the purposes of trying to identify that same issue in other people in the future. >> tom fuentes, i really thank you for your candor and for having the conversation with me that everyone is having in this country right now and they want to see something done about this, no matter how you feel about gun laws and second amendment rights, it's something that everyone feels needs to be looked at. thank you for having that conversation. for more information on how to help those affected by the

shooting, go to cnn.com/impact. because of social media now, the proliferation of social media, people are going online to share their grief and outrage at sandy hook element ree. our ireporters have been sending in moving commentary. josh levs is monitoring all of it for us. i can only imagine what you're seeing on social media. >> people are talking about gun laws. i want to share something with you that was posted on facebook by captain mark kelly, husband of gabby giffords. that's a family that knows a lot about the kind of tragedies that can happen on an otherwise beautiful day that turns into carnage. let's look a statement that he has put into facebook. he says, as we mourn, we must sound a call for our leaders to stand up and do what is right. this time our response must consist of more than regret, sorrow, and condolence.

the children of sandy hook elementary school and all victims of gun violence deserve leaders who have the courage to participate in a meaningful discussion about our gun laws. and that's an example of discussions among people you know and around the country and around the world raising questions with a special focus on gun laws and at the same time being driven by a lot of passion and intense emotions about what we're all going through. this experience traumatized people everywhere. parent like me and people of all ages and stripes. one of the people who weighed in is an ireporter who sent us this video. he's in washington, d.c. he has daughters and he was actually picking up one of his kids at school when he heard the news. here's part of what he says. >> there are so many questions right now, more questions than answers. but what i do know is that we need to find some way to come together around all victims of

violence, not just at the sandy hook elementary school. that is the tranl jik news of the day but really figure out what we can do to save our children and make them feel safe. >> i'm talking with you on facebook. joshlevs@cnn.com. this is a photo spread of people mourning all over the world. some of these pictures from all over connecticut. this one is in rio. you will see that there are many pictures of people all over the world holding vigils, sharing the sadness. the one act of one person that destroyed lives, shattered a community, has shattered millions and these emotions are being shared all over the world. we are hearing you. don, i'll be with you later with the latest on the investigation. >> josh levs, thank you very much. and i have witnessed it on the faces of people here. i have not seen people who, quite honestly, looked like this since i saw the rescue workers of 9/11. just a blank and stunned look on people's faces as they try to go

on with their lives in light of the horrific incident. traumatized parents and children have horrifying details of the connecticut shooting. we have all of those details for you. [ male announcer ] this is amy. amy likes to invest in the market. she also likes to ride her bike. she knows the potential for making or losing money can pop up anytime. that's why she trades with the leader in mobile trading. so she's always ready to take action, no matter how wily... or weird...

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the deadly shooting here in connecticut has changed the lives of some elementary school children forever. and as the kids from sandy hook elementary school, as they rush into the arms of frantic parents, many of them recall the chaos and the fear they had witnessed just a few moments ago. our brian todd has the details. >> reporter: the account of a young boy said to be delivering an attendance report to the office when the shootings took place is surreal. >> i saw some of the bullets going past the hall that i was right next to and then a teacher pulled me into her classroom. >> reporter: he said he heard a sound like someone kicking a door. his mother, clinging to him, had words of thanks. >> i'm just so grateful to the

teacher who saved him. >> reporter: you think the teacher saved his life? >> he definitely did. he had bullets going by him and she grabbed him and other child and pulled them into a question. >> reporter: brendan murray, a fourth grader, described the chaos. >> i was in the gym at the time. we heard like lots of bangs and we thought it was the kuft can stoed general knocking things down. we heard screaming. and so we -- we went -- like we went to the wall and we sat down and then a police came in and said, is he in here? and then he ran out and then somebody yelled, get to a safe place. so we went into the closet in the gym and we sat there for a little while and then the police like were knocking on the door and they were like, we're

evacuating people, we're evacuating people. >> reporter: cnn is only airing sounds of children whose parents gave them permission. one was heard crying, why, why? a policeman was heard saying it was the worst thing he had seen in his career. a nurse from nearby danbury hospital described the scene there as parent waited for word from their children. >> all of these parents were waiting for their children to come out. they thought that they were still alive. there were 20 parents that were just told that their parents were dead. it was awful. >> reporter: the father of a young girl who survived was just trying to process it all. >> it was shocking. i got the call at work this morning and i can't believe a small town like this would have something like this happen and to be in an elementary school is unheard of. >> reporter: by late friday morning and into the evening evacuated children were being cared for and reuniting with their parents at a nearby

firehouse. brian todd, cnn, washington. >> what do you say to the children in what do you say to them? five years ago this was the scene at new life church in colorado springs. a gunman opened fire during a church service and killed two teenage sisters. it is something that pastor boyd understands. he's the author of "fear in evil," a test of faith. pastor boyd, thank you for joining us on really this terrible, terrible time for the country. can you heal from this? >> yes, you can. that's the good news. right now i can't manual. i have two kids of my own. i can't imagine the pain those parents are feeling and right now they are numb and we have

experienced healing, restoration, we're smiling again, laughing again. it takes a really long time. i want to encourage the people of connecticut to be there for these families months from now, years from now. it's going to take a while from now, maybe years for this town to come back to a sense of normality and healing. >> and time heals -- i guess it heals all wounds maybe but the church in sandy hook and element mea meant tree school is the last place that you expect this to happen. how do you explain a tragedy of this kind, especially to a child? >> it's -- you lose your sense of innocence. you go to a school that is a place where everything is safe and good. your teacher is a person that protects and we're hearing unbelievable stories of teachers and administrators literally

laying down their lives for their kids. at our church, it was a sunday morning worship service. last place you'd expect violence but violence did come. you have to talk honestly about evil and that good overcomes evil and i think you have to make sure that your kids feel protected and safe. we did that at our church. it's a safe place to worship now but we've created a sense of safety and people now are smiling again and i think you just have to talk honestly with your children and listen honestly and give honest answers to really hard questions. >> pastor, my colleague back in atlanta, deborah feyerick has a question for you. >> pastor, it's interesting. i hear you say it's about good versus evil but it's also about life versus death and i read something that resonated with me. a psychologist wrote, we walk

through life with the wonderful myth of invulnerability. we think our humanity is something special, sacred, and precious and then something like this comes along and it makes you realize that you are fragile, that you are vulnerable and that's where the trauma sets in, that e. oh, my god, this could have been any of our schools. this could be any of our children and, frankly, the shooter could have been somebody we all know. >> exactly right. i think that's one of the issues that we need to talk about and this is what we're going to talk about this weekend. it made me think about -- we need to have better conversations about how to be better parents, how to be better friends, how to establish a community where we can have really honest conversations about people that have mental illness and i think the church is a good place to start that conversation. i think the community at large has to come together and we have to talk about the realities of the culture in which we live. we do not live in an i'd legal list stick broken world. we live in a broken world that needs redemption and we need to

start having serious conversations about how to be better parents, how to be better friends, how to have tougher conversations -- >> pastor, with that said, then, you're talking about honest conversations and being better parent. i'm just going to read this. this comes on the heel -- the oregon mall shooting, colorado movie theater which i covered in depth just a couple of months ago, congresswoman gabrielle giffords. as a pastor, do you think you have a responsibility to talk to your congregation about gun control in this country? >> yes. but the bigger question is violence. i am concerned about how easy it is for people that are meant nt disturbed to get guns. i'm a gun owner myself but i have serious concerns about how easy it is for people to get their hands on the guns. but how about the culture of

violence? where's the outrage -- >> pastor, hang on. i don't want to be disrespectful. yes, i agree with you but this particular issue is about guns. this person went in with guns. numerous guns and killed many people, children. he didn't beat them up. he didn't knife them. he didn't set off a canister or a molitoff cocktail and every time i'm on a scene covering a story like this, the person does it with guns. and we continue to say it's about a culture of violence. it's about this. it's about guns, pastor. >> first of all, i own guns and i'm not violent. listen, i'm with you. i heard your conversation earlier and i agree that we need to have careful examination of who can put their hands on a gun. but at the end of the day i know tons of people who own guns who

are not violent. i think we need to talk about both. i'm agreeing with you, that there is a culture of violence. i don't think you can talk about one without talking about the other. i agree with you. we have to talk about both. >> yeah. and i think there are people who are respectful of guns, who know how to use guns and get training and then people who don't respect guns or life and that's the conversation we need to be having. >> no bought about it. >> thank you, pastor boyd. >> thank you. god's peace on these people in connecticut. >> amen. thank you. president obama promising to take what he calls meaningful action to prevent tragedies like this from happening again. brianna keilar is live with the latest for us. the president said meaningful yesterday. he even teared up. i was at the white house last night for a -- supposed to be a celebration but it was kind of somber and the president

mentioned that at the christmas party the victims of this particular tragedy. what does he mean by meaningful? >> reporter: meaningful action, actually, we don't know. what we do know and this is the sense i'm getting is that he does mean something, that he does actually mean that some action should be taken but in terms of the specifics, don, we don't know what they are. and this is the sense i'm getting that this is a general promise to pursue something to try to avert future tragedies like this one. the sense here at the white house is that the president has sort of experienced with the country almost a handful now of these tragedies between ft. hood, between the shooting of congresswoman gabby giffords, the sikh temple shooting that you mentioned and this one, especially with the age of the victims, just sort of really bringing home the fact that something's not working. that there are just too many of these instances happening and something needs to be done. we don't know the specifics.

talking to people who are familiar with what his options may be, one option may be finding a way to limit the number of bullets and magazines, dealing with mental health issues. we have yet to see what role that played in this tragedy in connecticut. but reporting of mental health in a way that people who shouldn't have access to guns indeed don't have access to them. that's just informed speculation at this point, don, as we try to figure out what the president means when he says something meaningful. >> meaningful action. meaningful action would be a start, at the least. thank you, brianna keilar. deborah feyerick monitoring other developing news from the cnn center in atlanta.

what do you have? >> other things happening at this hour, secretary of state hillary clinton has sustained a concussion after fainting. she's been monitored by doctors and is now at home. syrian rebels are mostly in control of aleppo. this comes weeks after fighting with regime troops and it's a sign that government forces are losing ground. at least 250 government soldiers had defected sin the infantry academy came under siege. and in the uk, a mass was held today for the nurse who apparently hanged herself after a prank call. her husband and children spoke about their loss for the first time since her death. she took the hoax call from two australian deejays. the funeral will be held on monday in southern india. don? >> thank you very much, deb. we'll get back to you in a minute. you know, the connecticut

shooting has chilled the hearts of people all across this country and it's brought back horrifying memories of the column bin tragedy. for survivors it's like reliving this nightmare all over again. it's one of the first things that we think about when they think about a school shooting. joining me now is an author from new york. dave, you wrote about the tragedy. does yesterday's killing bear a resemblance to that or virginia tech or any of the other shootings? >> well, yes it does in a whole lot of ways. especially emotionally i think for all of us. i talked to quite a few of the columbine survivors yesterday who were having really, really rough days in different ways. it pulls that together and then of course the same questions that we're asking with everyone

wanting to know he why and we made a lot of mistakes in that case of jumping too quickly to why. i think the press is much better now at understanding to be more cautious about these things but still a desire to understand why this happened and how it fits into this wider picture of why all of these shootings. >> is there anything that -- with between all of the shootings, the suspects, is there anything that resonates with you about detecting signs that a person is about to commit such a horrific crime or do these people sometimes just snap? >> yeah, that's a great question. they definitely don't snap. that's a word we should actually try to take out of our vocabulary. in almost all cases it's a very slow build. the secret service did a remarkable study of all of the cases of school shooters over a 25-year period and the vast majority plan them in advance. many for weeks and months in advance. i believe i saw before we went

on air that there's a report that this gunman tried to buy a gun on tuesday or earlier in the week. so at least earlier he was planning. that's normal. it's typically a slow d disintegration. there are three main types and the most prevalent part is the angry suppressive. picture a person who is suicidely depressed, and writing about committing suicide for two years. it's a really, really sort of slow, downward spiral. past sadness into a sense of hopeleness and senseleness for most of these people. that may or may not be the

situation here but that's most often what we're looking at. if there's a lesson from any of these, the most easy way to improve the situation is deal with adolescent depression. >> i was just talking to a white house correspondent. i was talking to former fbi assistant director tom fuentes about this. the president said some meaningful action to modify gun control. having written about columbine, witnessing virginia tech and some of these things, what do you think? is it time to do something meanful about gun laws in this country? >> i think it is. i think most of us are feeling more hopeful because i think we've learned that no one of these events is going to cause a big change. after columbine that now the country will wake up and we'll do something and in fact we didn't. we left the assault weapons ban he can pyre. after gabrielle giffords, there were other different times.

i think we've learned our lesson that it can't be a response to any one tragedy. we need to marshal forces and people becoming more and more adamant. just like you said earlier, we need to be more serious. you said you've been covering this for years and every time you're on site it's because someone did this with a gun. let's face the obvious, that there are guns here. in china, apparently the same day as somebody went on a rampage with a knife and i don't remember the exact amount injured, more than 20 people. and so far none of those people have died because it's very hard to kill off a lot of people with a knife. and guns are have the problem. we have a problem with the killers themselves and the guns and we need to stop this conversation of like should we talk about the guns or the killers? guns or killers? it's both. we need to address both and try

to shrink both of those and make the guns less available and find out what leads to killers and that's the only hope of reducing this dramatically. >> dave cullen, it's deb feyerick. you saw what happened with columbine. you saw how that played out. the question, obviously, is when somebody wants to do something like this, why do you have those who are in fact most vulnerable to going to an elementary school to 5, 6, 7, 8, 9-year-olds, there's something pathological about that. >> it is. it was really appalling to me. i went back and forth between -- well, i'll tell you, i spent the last 13 years trying to understand the killers and trying to sort of put myself in their shoes and understand why. because i've been with so many different conferences with, you

know, people who are authorities and have been studying these for their entire career, shrinks, law enforcement, other people, one thing that i've settled on is that the killer always has a reason. in their mind, it's not senseless reason. there was some reasoning that worked for them and if we're going to really want to solve this, we have to get in their heads and understand from their point of view. so that's been my mission for the last several years but yesterday that was really hard to do. you just showed that little boy getting interviewed and i don't know how you shoot at one -- i don't know how you kill anybody but especially somebody like that, i don't know how you do one. i don't know how you keep doing it. but all that aside, i can tell

you actually how it sometimes does happen and we don't know if this is the situation here but most often with people who are deeply depressed and suicidal, the most common thing they do if they are going to do something drastic is kill themselves and then there are people who if go one step beyond that and take out the source of their pain which is usually boss, girlfriend, a family member. they shoot the boss, girlfriend, parent, whoever is sort of like the symbol of that pain. the next step of people who take it one step further are people who attack not just that person but other person around them. so if the wife or the girlfriend is the problem, you also kill the girlfriend who i know is talking bad behind my back. >> deb and dave -- >> yes. >> deb and dave, we've talked a lot about this and i think it has to do with something that we

don't discuss a lot and that is that thing called attachment injuries, when people feel betrayed by other people, whether it's relevant in their mind or not. i've been speaking to therapists about this a lot lately and it's something we're going to learn about. perhaps it's what happened in this case. maybe not. dave and deb, thank you. deb, we'll get back to you in atlanta. in just two days, students head back to school. what can schools do in the wake of all of this to make it all better? what can they do to make sure that their students feel safe and safeguard the facilities? i'll talk to an expert ahead. from the best players in history to the number 1 club in the world. the potential of manchester united unlocked. nyse euronext. unlocking the world's potential. look this isn't my first christmas. these deals all seem great at the time... but later... [ shirt ] merry christmas, everybody!

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welcome back, everyone. i'm standing by the newtown methodist church and it's open 24 hours for anyone who wants to grief ve or pay their respects anyone who died. this had is a very busy square in newtown, connecticut.

some people are coming from towns around the area just to see what's going on here and to help console some of the folks here. as i said at the beginning of this broadcast, we're going to go through this as sensitively and respectful as we can do. this is tough for any journalist to cover but not as near as difficult as what the families are dealing with and our hearts and prayers go out with them. and that said, i want to say that we are awaiting the newest news conference from the connecticut state police in newtown, connecticut. here's what we know right now. law enforcement official says -- and this is the suspect's name. 20-year-old adam lanza. we will say that as little as possible. we have to do it for the record. that he had some sort of altercation with people at the school a few days before the shooting. the official does not know --

doesn't know any details about that altercation or who it involved. we also learned from a law enforcement source that the suspect tried to buy a gun three days before the shooting but didn't have the proper paperwork. and police also reveal today that three guns, not two as previously thought, were found near the suspect's body inside the school. the victim's bodies have been removed from the school. i should say, the heroes in all of this. their bodies have been removed from the school. and they have been taken to the medical examiner's office. their names are expected to be released soon. those are people who led extraordinary lives and were taken away way too soon. and just this morning, parents were dropping off their kids like any other day. just yesterday morning, i should say. like any other day. no one could have managed the carnage and horror that would occur just hours later.

so many of the victims, sadly, innocent children. how do you cope, even begin to heal or explain what has happened here? i don't know where you start, which is why i want the help of a clinical psychologist. jeff gardere is here. jeff, i don't even know where to begin with this. with the community dealing with 26 people, with 20 children, with families dealing with this, parents who sent their kids to school, went off to work or off to do whatever they were doing, getting ready for the holidays, maybe they were well, i just tho be very honest with ourselves that many of us feel like you, don. we don't know where to begin. but there is a place and that is what the police are doing and the mobile crisis units are doing now which is providing debriefing to not just get information but to allow these families to allow the parents,

to allows the friends to just be able to talk about what they're experiencing. allowing them to ease into this grieving process that's going to be taking such a long time for them to get through, but most importantly, to help stabilize them, making sure that they get information that they get food, that they get warmth, that they get support and that they have an open communication, shoulders that are available for them to cry on to lean on. that's where you begin. >> people have been talking about this suspect, this shooter, the gunman, that he had a form of autism. autism is not a mental illness. it's not a social illness. it's a neurological disorder, right? >> that is correct. >> neurobiological disorder. >> yes, biological. when we're looking at autism, we're looking at, there is a high inheritability, in other

words that it is inherited. and quite often there are issues with the chromosomes, 15 and 16 which are markers for autism. so we see it is as you say this biological component. we find that 85% of people with autism are mentally retarded but you do have a certain portion who are part of the autism spectrum and have as this person reportedly allegedly had, some sort of asperger's which is a very high functioning autism and some of those individuals are extremely intelligent, but have problems like other autistic persons being able to interact in a social way, spending a lot of time alone just not having the general social skills. >> but you know what, i don't want to disfarnlg everyone who has autism. you don't want to blame autism for their problem. many people as i'm reading here

describe this gunman as nice and polite. they say they were shocked because he never showed any violent tendencies. i mean, can you -- does autism explain this type of behavior? i don't think so. >> quite frankly, autism doesn't explain this at all. i work with many autistic patients. i've worked with people who have high functioning autism, which is asperger's, and by the way, i should point out as a cautionary tale, we find one of the major causes of autism is this whole idea of not only is it passed on, but certainly some immune problems that women have when they're carrying their children. as far as in utero. but yes, we just do not find that people who are you ant -- autistic.

we do find there is an issue as a man goes into manhood or adult hood, they may be much harder to manage, they may have some fits of anger, but we don't see them going out and committing murder and mayhem. this is more of an issue between a parent and a child getting them to just be more productive. especially when we're looking at asperger's, we think that there are heads of corporations who have asperger's, against this is high functioning autism. >> and it's interesting, it always seems to be some person in their 20s, some young person and you know, getting older you realize when i was in my 20s, i thought i knew everything and everything would set me off. the older you get, the more you realize that you don't know. is there something just about youth that we're not teaching our kids or young people that they think they know everything and they think that you know, the world revolves around them and they have the right and the power to take out other people?

>> well, it is that, don. we see that our youth are very much disaffected, and part of that, and you know, you've known me for years now. i'm not into the pointing fingers and blaming the media and blaming this or that. though we do have to look at this whole idea of mental health laws, gun laws and perhaps helping people more than they're getting help. but i really do believe that too often, our children live in a virtual reality. the reality of many violent videos. even though we have a lot of kids who play these violent videos and nothing happens to them, they don't go out and kill anyone, if you have a person who has some mental health issues or who may be limited in some way or is in an environment that is catastrophic, we have to be careful to not let them drift into the margins of society and in this case as we note with this young man, spending a lot of time gaming, spending a lot

of time on these video games because that, as we see, is a recipe for disaster. >> living virtual lives instead of interacting and living a real-life with other people. thank you, jeff, gardere. appreciate that. >> sure. >> you can bet that schools across the country are going to be re-evaluating their security procedures. this school district had just done it to try to prevent a tragedy similar to what happened here in connecticut. kenneth trump is the president of the national security and safety services. he joins me live from cleveland. parents are on the edge thinking about sending their children back to school after the shooting. i imagine many parents are. what can schools immediately do to keep their kids safe? >> parents need to remember that the first thing they should do is to send their children to school. monday will be the safest day you could ever be in a school in this country because there's going to be a heightened

awareness and heightened security measures. that's critical. we saw waves of children stay home after column brian. we don't want to see that now. parents should feel comfortable talking to your principals. what are you doing in my child's school to improve safety? how well prepared are you to manage an emergency situation? testimony schools are already doing things. parents, unfortunately, just don't know about it or haven't asked and the schools perhaps haven't communicated as pro actively as they should. i don't think we need to throw out the playbook of best practices in school safety. we don't need to be teaching elementary kids to throw pencils and backpacks at armed intruders and have a metal detector at every door. we need to focus on the fundamentals that we've learned from columbine dealing with prevention, mental health services, counselors, psychologists, security, school resource officers, training your staff, having emergency plans, practicing drills. these things are solid best practices. >> hey, kenneth, i want to go

back to something you said. every single person to a person, everyone who's spoken to me today about this issue talking about guns, everyone has said mental health. that seems to be a big issue. is there something that we're missing when it comes to mental health or teaching people about mental health issues or learning more about mental health of snunlds is there something missing here? >> well, if you recall back to columbine, for years, bullying was blamed, but in some research that was done by two separate authors, they really came down to the same issue again of mental health. i think it's very easy to talk about getting your arms around bullying or things that we can all relate to, but mental health is much more complex. there are many people walking our streets with undiagnosed and or untreated mental health issues. how do we know that?

it's easier to predict student on student violence and to get a jump ahead of that when you know your kids. it's harder for a principal to know a lone wolf actor is going to walk across the schoolhouse door and what their mental status is. >> yeah. listen, let's talk more about just securing the schools. we can't turn schools into mini prisons for students. so then what do you do? >> the first and best line of defense is always a well-trained highly alert staff and student body. the number one way we find out about weapons in school consistently has been from kids who know that other kids have them and when we're talking about violence inside the school, having school resource officers who build relationships with kids along with other school staff so that the kids come forward to tell you problems that are going on at home. abuse, family dysfunctional issues, situations that are going to add family stressors that may spill over into the school. talking with your f